How to Prep for Your Business Website Project
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So you've decided it's time to tackle your website for your business. You're feeling optimistic, maybe even excited. "How hard could it be?" you think. "I'll knock this out over the weekend."
Narrator voice: It was, in fact, much harder than anticipated.
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.
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Fast forward three months later...
You're drowning in a sea of half-written copy, your laptop looks like a sticky note crime scene with random color codes, and you've asked ChatGPT "Wait, what the heck is responsive design?" more times than you care to admit.
Here's what I've learned after watching hundreds of business owners navigate website projects: the ones who know what's coming have a completely different experience.
Instead of feeling like they're assembling IKEA furniture blindfolded, they stay organized, make confident decisions, and enjoy the process.
So let's break down what happens during a website project. No sugar-coating, no "it's so easy!" promises... just the honest truth so you can plan accordingly.
Phase 1: Planning & Goal Setting (Week 1-2)
Or as I like to call it: "Wait, what am I trying to do here?"
Define Your Website's Purpose & Goals
Before you get sucked into the Pinterest vortex of "gorgeous websites that make me feel inadequate," you need to get ruthlessly specific on what your website needs to do for your business.
Are you trying to book more discovery calls? Sell those digital products you've been talking about for months? Look legit enough so people stop asking if you're "a business"?
→ Write down your top three goals, and make them specific. No "get more customers" vagueness. Try "book 5 new consultation calls per month" or "sell 50 units of my signature course for Black Friday."
Why this matters: Without clear goals, you'll find yourself making random decisions based on what looks pretty or what other people are doing, instead of what works for your business.
Think about what's driving you nuts about your current online presence (if you have one).
Do people visit your site and immediately bounce like they've seen something horrifying?
Can they not figure out how to contact you?
Are you secretly embarrassed to share your website link at networking events?
These pain points become your roadmap for what needs fixing.
Reality check: This phase feels deceptively simple, but don't rush it. I've seen too many gorgeous websites that don't help their owners make money because nobody took time to think about strategy first. It's like building a beautiful cozy cottage but with no foundation... cute, but not gonna last.
Pro tip: Create a simple one-page document with your top 3 goals and refer back to it whenever you're making decisions. This keeps you focused when you get distracted by shiny new ideas.
Research Your Audience & Competition
Time to play detective. 🕵️♀️
Who's visiting your website, and what are they trying to accomplish when they get there? Your ideal client's needs should drive everything: how you organize information, what you emphasize, even the words you use.
If you're targeting busy moms, your site needs to work differently than if you're going after corporate executives who have assistants to handle their coffee orders.
Now for the fun part: competitor research. Look at 5-10 websites in your industry. What works? What makes you want to immediately click away? What questions do they answer you hadn't considered?
This isn't about copying anyone (please don't... originality is your friend), but understanding what people in your industry expect to see.
Quick research hack: Screenshot 3-5 things you love (and a few things you DON’T love) from different sites and save them in an "inspiration" folder for reference later.
When you're stuck on design decisions later, these screenshots become your reference guide instead of that vague memory of "that one site that looked good."
Phase 2: Content & Brand Asset Gathering (Week 2-4)
AKA: "Where the heck did I put my logo file?"
Collect & Organize Your Materials
Time to become a content archaeologist. Start digging through everything you've got: old website copy, brochures gathering dust in that drawer, that bio you wrote for a networking event two years ago, photos from your phone that aren't selfies or pictures of your lunch.
Create folders with descriptive names, like: "Brand Assets," "Website Copy," "Photos to Use," "Random Stuff I Might Need." (... because there's ALWAYS random stuff.)
And for the love of all that's holy, name your files properly. "YourBusiness_Logo_Main.jpg" instead of "logo.jpg" or "IMG_2847.heic." Future you will thank present you profusely.
More info here: How To Optimize Images In Squarespace
Don't forget the brand stuff: logo in multiple formats (if you have them), brand colors with those weird alphanumeric codes, fonts you use, any brand guidelines that exist.
If these don't exist yet... well, that's another project entirely, and we're not opening that can of worms today.
Reality check: This phase usually takes way longer than expected because you'll discover you don't have half the things you thought you had, and the things you do have are scattered across 12 different folders, three old phones, and that laptop you haven't used since the Obama administration. (I miss those days.)
Time-saving tip: Set aside a full afternoon for this. Put on a good playlist, grab some snacks and your favorite beverage, and power through it all at once. It's tedious, but you'll thank yourself later when you're not hunting for files at midnight like some kind of digital raccoon.
Plan Your Photography Strategy
Photos can make or break your website. Do you need professional headshots? Product photos? Behind-the-scenes shots? If you're hiring a photographer, book them now (good ones are booked out for weeks/months).
DIY photo hack: If professional photos aren't in the budget right now, focus on good lighting and clean backgrounds. Your phone camera is probably better than you think (thanks, technology!). Natural light near a window works wonders, and you can always upgrade photos later when business is booming.
TIP: You can also use stock photos… my current favorite sites are Dupe Photos (free), KaboomPics (free) and Haute Stock (paid membership; get 15% off with my affiliate link).
Phase 3: Content Creation & Copywriting (Week 3-6)
Welcome to where most people get stuck for approximately forever
Write Your Website Copy
Ah, copywriting. Where optimism goes to die. 😅
(JK! Mostly.)
You need words for every single page: homepage, about, services, contact, plus any other pages specific to your business.
Each page needs to speak to your audience while clearly explaining what you offer... without sounding like every other person in your industry who apparently helps people "achieve their dreams" and "live their best life."
Start with your core message: what you do, who you help, and what makes you different from every single other person offering similar services in your Instagram feed.
Expand into service descriptions that explain benefits, your story in a way that builds trust without being a novel, and calls-to-action that don't sound like robots wrote them during a particularly uninspired coffee break.
Remember: write for your visitors, not yourself. They care way more about how you solve their problems than where you got your certification or that you're "passionate about helping people." (Spoiler alert: everyone says they're passionate about helping people.)
Reality check: This is where most DIY projects grind to a halt. Writing good website copy is hard. It's part psychology, part marketing, part mind-reading. Don't underestimate how long this takes or how many times you'll rewrite that homepage hero section.
Copywriting shortcut: Start by writing like you're explaining your business to a friend over coffee (or a marg... no judgment 🍸). Skip the jargon and fancy words that make you sound like a corporate press release. You can polish it later, but getting your thoughts down in plain language is half the battle.
Create Your Site Structure & Navigation
Map out every page your site needs and how they connect to each other. Think about the journey from "I discovered you exist" to "take my money!"... whether that's booking a call, buying a product, or signing up for your email list.
Your navigation menu is crucial. Keep main navigation to 5-7 items max. Everything else can live in your footer or as subpages. If people can't figure out where to find stuff, they'll bounce ASAP.
Navigation test: Once you've planned your structure, ask someone unfamiliar with your business to look at your menu and guess what they'd find on each page.
If they're confused, simplify. If your own mother can't figure out your navigation, Houston, we have a problem.
Free download: Step-by-step easy AI prompt to map out and plan your website
Phase 4: Design & Development (Week 4-8)
Where the magic happens (and where things can get complicated fast)
Choose Your Platform & Technical Setup
If you're going DIY, you need to pick your poison: Squarespace, WordPress, Shopify, or one of the other dozen options that all claim to be "the easiest website builder ever."
Each has strengths, limitations, and learning curves steeper than that hill you avoid on your morning jog.
Compare here:
WordPress vs Squarespace vs Showit vs Shopify: Which Platform Is Right For You?
Squarespace Plans and Pricing: A Complete Guide
There's hosting, domains, SSL certificates, email setup... it's a lot of technical stuff that has nothing to do with making your business look good online, but somehow becomes your full-time job for three weeks.
Reality check: The learning curve here is steeper than it looks in those cheerful YouTube tutorials. What seems straightforward & easy when someone else is doing it gets complicated fast when you're trying to implement it yourself at 11 PM on the Tuesday before you wanted to launch.
Platform decision framework: List your must-have features first (online store, booking system, blog, etc.), research which platforms handle those best. Don't get swayed by cute templates if the platform can't do what you need... that's like buying a sports car when you need a pickup truck.
Design & Build Your Website
This is where everything comes together.
You'll make approx. 12,003 decisions about layout, colors, fonts, spacing, mobile responsiveness, loading speed, and details you didn't even know existed until they became your problem.
If you're designing yourself, triple your time estimate. Then triple it again.
There's a massive learning curve for design principles, technical implementation, and making things work across different devices without looking like a hot mess.
Sanity-saving approach: Start with a simple, clean design. You can always add fancy elements later, but getting the basics right (clear navigation, readable text, obvious contact info) is more important than bells, whistles, and animations.
Phase 5: Review, Testing & Launch (Week 6-8)
The home stretch (where you discover what you missed)
Test Everything
Before you unleash your creation on the world, every link, form, and feature needs testing. And I mean everything... including that random code for your buttons you added last night that seemed like a good idea at the time (speaking from experience here….).
Test on your phone, your tablet, your laptop.
Ask friends to test on their devices. Check that contact forms send emails, social links go to the right places, and everything loads properly instead of looking like abstract art.
Review all your copy one more time. Again. Typos are sneaky little creatures that love to hide until after you've announced your launch to everyone you know.
Reality check: You'll find issues you never expected. The contact form works perfectly on desktop but breaks on mobile. Your beautiful image gallery loads slower than dial-up internet. Your carefully crafted copy has three typos in the first paragraph that somehow survived 12 rounds of proofreading.
Testing checklist: Create a simple list of everything that needs to work (forms, links, mobile display, loading speed) and test each item on different devices. It's boring but essential... like flossing or checking your bank account.
Launch Strategy
Launching isn't hitting "publish" and hoping for the best.
You need a plan for announcing your new website: email your list, update social media, revise business cards, update email signatures, and probably change that Zoom background you've been using since 2020.
Set up analytics so you can track whether your site is meeting those goals you defined way back in Phase 1 (‘member those?).
Launch day reality: Something will probably go wrong. Maybe a link breaks or an image doesn't display right or your contact form decides to take a vacation. Don't panic. Most visitors won't notice small issues, and you can fix things as you find them.
The Reality Check: Why This Gets Overwhelming
Here's what nobody tells you about DIY website projects: they take 3x longer than you think they will, consume 5x more mental energy than anticipated, and have a mysterious ability to multiply into 17 different sub-projects you didn't see coming.
The "quick weekend project" turns into months of work because you're learning new skills while trying to make important business decisions that affect how people perceive your entire company.
Every choice requires research and mental energy that could go toward serving clients or developing your business.
Plus, you don't know what you don't know. Mobile responsiveness, SEO, conversion psychology, loading speeds... these become problems you didn't realize existed until they're keeping you up at night Googling "why does my website look terrible on phones."
The survival strategy: Break everything into tiny, manageable steps. Instead of "build website" on your to-do list (which feels about as achievable as "solve world hunger"), try tasks like "write homepage hero section," "choose primary font," or "test contact form on phone." Small tasks feel manageable; giant projects feel impossible and make you want to hide under your desk.
When to consider getting help: If you find yourself spending more time watching tutorials than making progress, if technical issues make you want to throw your laptop out the window, or if this project is taking so long that your business is suffering while you play web designer... those might be signs it's worth investing in professional help.
Making the Most of Your Website Project
Website projects succeed when you have clarity about the process, realistic timelines & honest expectations about what's actually involved (spoiler: it's more than you think).
The question isn't whether you can build a website yourself – you probably can, eventually, with enough caffeine & determination.
The real question is whether spending months learning web design & wrestling with technical details is the best use of your time & energy as a business owner.
What else could you accomplish with those months? How many clients could you serve? What business development could you focus on instead? What revenue could you generate while someone else handles the website headaches?
Bottom line: There's no shame in either approach. Some people genuinely love the DIY challenge and have the time to dedicate to it.
Others would rather focus on what they do best and get professional help for everything else. Both are completely valid choices... like choosing between cooking dinner or ordering takeout. Neither makes you better or worse at life.
The key to success: Whichever route you choose, go in with realistic expectations, a solid plan, and the understanding that good websites take time to build (and perfect). Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was any website worth having.
And if you decide the DIY route isn't for you? I help business owners get strategy-first websites that convert visitors into clients, without months of learning curves and technical headaches. You can learn more about working together here ... no pressure or icky sales tactics, just honest advice about what makes sense for you and your business.
